In your workmanlike Thursday media column: Megan McCarthy to the NYO, Ana Marie Cox and Nick Davies to The Guardian, a new EP at ABC News, Jon Meacham to Time, and ruthless morning news bookers.

Yesterday, the already-shrunken world of media reporting lost its two grandest figures: Jim Romenesko, the quiet man who singlehandedly set the agenda, like a front page editor for all media news (semi-retiring, by choice); and Slate's Jack Shafer—America's most consistently fearless press critic (laid off). Step…

Megan McCarthy wondered why the New York Times hates West Coast gossips; Natalie Eshaya caught a cheater; and Julia Allison did not know what her students were thinking. The Twitterati were confused and dismayed.

Zach Klein and Megan McCarthy tried to hustle their way out of Austin; Brian Stelter and Ana Marie Cox wished bourbon on their audience; and Jeff Jarvis helped an old-media addict escape denial. South by Southwest changed the Twitterati.

Since 2005, semi-automatic news aggregator TechMeme has become a front page for Silicon Valley and its leaderboard rankings a status obsession for writers. Now comes Mediagazer, the similarly cyborg compilation of media news. Egos are already trembling.

A Wall Street Journal editor went nuclear on a leading content aggregator; Kim Severson developed a case of bee envy and someone said the Balloon Boy should basically die. The Twitterati were especially judgy.

Twitter is the ideal medium to express your own idiocy. Dan Abrams denounces the mainstream media which gave birth to his career, a Google-enriched entrepreneur eats its free lunch, and Alan Meckler discovers Twitter:

Today's sweetest tweets: CNET's Caroline McCarthy got ready to don a Snuggie. Valleywag alumna Megan McCarthy (no relation) dreamed of Atlantis. David Gregory of Meet the Press succumbed to Twitter peer pressure. And more!

Former Valleywag party girl Megan McCarthy's all-too-brief career at Wired: admired, hired, inspired, fired. (Photo by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)

AUSTIN, TX — A confession: Between the rain pouring down and the rumors pouring in, I didn't even make it to the Austin Convention Center today for any of SXSW's official programming. A show veteran granted me absolution: "No one makes it to the third day." The third night, however, was not optional. The hot ticket:…

Think of a high-school reunion held the day after you graduate: That was the vibe at the Side Bar Sunday night, where Gawker Media (publisher of fine weblog media products) threw a party for Valleywag and our sister sites, io9 and Lifehacker. We won Twitter praise for the free beer and minimal line out front,…

We'll have lots of photos from Stirr's $120-per-person holiday mixer once Owen rolls out of bed in the morning. For now, here's my filler shot of Wired newcomer Megan McCarthy and top Scoble-blogger Robert Scoble sharing holiday cheer even with the likes of us.

Get a few drinks in freshly departed Valleywag party correspondent Megan McCarthy, and she will start loudly insisting, no matter what the subject of conversation, that she was involved somehow. You're from New England? She's from New England. You think your friend is pretty? She's pretty, too. Valleywag had a…

You know, I'm perfectly fine with funtrepreneur-in-residence Jason Calacanis telling us to "please die." I'm totally OK when Calacanis emails me "Subject: Idiot," because I can take a joke, especially when it's true. But dammit, Janet, Calacanis has stopped posting pics of his puppies. Valleywag has been forced to…

When I could roust her from a drunken stupor, Megan McCarthy would usually start complaining about our last five posts, my management style, or, for lack of anything else, my hairdo. But in between, she occasionally turned in brilliant work. After the jump, my favorite bits of McCarthyism.

True story — back in October, Valleywag editor-for-life Owen Thomas and I were sitting in a coffee shop in North Beach going over party-correspondent duties and expectations and the future of the blog and all that other stuff that you talk about when you're talking with your boss. "I want you to do a Valleywag…

Herb Caen's typewriter is gone from Moose's, but the recently remodeled North Beach hangout still hosts the beloved columnist's spirit, I'm convinced. So I picked the spot for drinks in honor of Megan "Leggy" McCarthy, our party correspondent who's headed to some print rag in SoMa. (In Soviet Russia, Wired gets…

Ahh, that feels good right there. I don't think we'll be talking about this week next week. The Facebook pile-on continued. Amazon's Kindle reader suffered a surprise media backlash. I'd hoped for another bank-employee-in-tutu photo to liven things up. Instead we got Gerstmanngate. At least we still have jobs — oh…

Megan McCarthy, who since October 2006 has covered the Silicon Valley party circuit for Valleywag and become bizarrely famous in Germany along the way, starts at Wired in two weeks. Instead of drinking startup founders under the table, she'll be fetching doppio venti extra-hot raspberry white soy milk mochas for…

Yes, tonight's the night. Dan Lyons as Fake Steve Jobs is meeting Segway-polo fanatic Real Steve Wozniak for an Options reading at the Menlo Park Keplers at 7:30. This is a party that we just can't miss. Some of us anyway. My boss is too cheap to let me expense a Virgin America flight cross-country. Owen "Mr.…